The lighting of the rotating wheels of automobiles and other moving vehicles utilizes a range of devices and strategies, to achieve various types of illumination of those wheels for safety and/or for decorative purposes.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,426, issued Sep. 24, 1996 to Dennis and Henry Cabanatan, discloses a set of automobile wheel lights that cast light to the wheels and are mounted on the automobile frame near each respective wheel. U.S. Pat. No. 6,176,603, issued Jan. 23, 2001 to Lester Spicer, discloses a wheeling light system that is mounted behind a wheel and casts light through openings in and/or around the wheel. U.S. Pat. No. 6,612,726, issued Sep. 2, 2003 to Cary Gloodt and James Hutchison, also discloses lighting an automobile system from behind the wheel, in which the wheel covering is at least partly transparent. In the disclosures of these three patents, the power source is located in the automobile body, and not in the rotating wheel.
Other attempts to light rotating wheels provide the lighting devices on the wheel. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,230, issued Aug. 9, 1988 to Cummings and Rose, disclose a string of lights, and a source of electrical power, connected to each other and attached to spokes of a bicycle wheel. U.S. Pat. No. 6,220,733, issued Apr. 24, 2001 to Gordon, provides a vehicle wheel in which at least one light source and at least one reflective body are arranged. In one disclosed embodiment, a number of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are mounted proximate to the center of a wheel, and are powered by batteries mounted in the inner hub of the wheel. Reflective bodies aligned to receive light from the LEDs are arranged variously, including by replacing spokes of a wheel with suitably sized and shaped reflective bodies. U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,630, issued Jun. 25, 1996 to Williams, describes a complex assembly for attaching to a wheel, so that lights rotate with the wheel, and are powered, via a commutator, from a power source in the vehicle itself. Also, U.S. Design Pat. No. 332,441, issued Jan. 12, 1993 to Douglas, discloses an ornamental design comprising lights arranged in a circle on an automobile wheel. This patent does not disclose any means of attachment nor powering.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,108, issued to Lu Chien on Mar. 2, 1999 teaches a lighting arrangement comprised of a flexible super thin lighting element disposed on a disc-shaped main body arranged to rotate, and a power source and related circuitry. U.S. Pat. No. 6,386,731, issued May 14, 2002 to Cheng, teaches a disc-shaped light, for placement on a rotating wheel, that is powered by a generator disposed in an apparatus in the center of the rotating wheel. U.S. Pat. No. 6,776,458, issued Aug. 17, 2004 to Wang, teaches a plurality of lighting emitting members that are affixed to a wheel cover specifically designed to receive those lighting emitting members. Each light emitting member comprises a light emitting element that is disposed to emit light outward from a point below a plane of the surface of the wheel cover. This appears to result in light being transmitted outwardly from points of the wheel cover, rather than broadcast across a portion of the surface of the wheel cover.
Also, patents have issued that regard a lighting device for a rotating vehicle wheel that is attached to the valve stem of the tire of the wheel. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,939 issued Oct. 22, 2002 to Deutsch et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,742,913 issued Jun. 1, 2004 to Deutsch, and U.S. Pat. No. issued Jun. 3, 2003 to Wen Huang. These patents describe devices that are threaded or otherwise attached to the valve stem, and that have a light source that is spaced apart from the surface of the respective wheel or wheel cover so that the main effect of the lighting would appear to create a circular trail of light from the light source during rotation, rather than a substantially reflective effect upon the surface of the respective wheel or wheel cover.
Other references that refer to various aspects of the technologies utilized in lighting and power sources include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,624,175, 5,497,302, and 6,789,928. These patents as well as all references, patents, patent applications, patent publications, technical publications, scientific publications, and other references referenced herein are hereby incorporated by reference in this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art to which the present invention pertains, and the basic operational variations of various lighting circuits.